It may not have a reusable rocket, or even the prospect of one, but that doesn’t mean United Launch Alliance isn’t without a few advantages of its own in competing for commercial launch orders. On Wednesday, ULA introduced a new website, called RocketBuilder.com, meant to highlight its newfound commitment to transparency, lowering launch prices and becoming […]
One of the many surprising discoveries made by NASA’s Dawn spacecraft in orbit over Ceres is that the dwarf planet has fewer large craters than might ordinarily be expected. As the largest target in the shooting gallery which is the main asteroid belt where Ceres resides, it should be bear the scars of numerous large […]
What a week in space. It began of course, with SpaceX launching a Dragon spacecraft to ISS for the 9th time, and landing a Falcon 9 first stage at Cape Canaveral for only the second time. It also featured a speech and curious non-endorsement by former astronaut and first female Shuttle Commander Eileen Collins at […]
On a beautiful Florida evening just one calendar day shy of a full moon, SpaceX provided some illumination of its own, recording a flawless liftoff and landing of its Falcon 9 rocket during the course of launching its Dragon spacecraft to the International Space Station for the NASA CRS-9 mission. Liftoff took place on […]
It is a busy week for commercial space. Orbital ATK An Orbital ATK Cygnus cargo vessel departed the International Space Station at 9:30 AM EDT this morning, heading for its usual path of destruction high over the Pacific Ocean, but not before it performs a unique fire in space experiment, as well as releases […]
In case you missed it, here is the official NASA press release from last night’s launch of the Orbital ATK Cygnus cargo vessel to the International Space Station: March 23, 2016 RELEASE 16-036 NASA Sends Fire, Meteor Experiments to International Space Station on Commercial Cargo Spacecraft The station’s Expeditions 47 and 48 crews will employ […]
One of the most exciting and innovative robotic space exploration missions we have been privileged to witness has won one of space exploration’s most prestigious awards. From NASA.gov NASA’s Dawn project team recently earned two prestigious awards, honoring its successful mission to giant asteroid Vesta and dwarf planet Ceres. On March 8, the Dawn project […]
NASA this week is celebrating the tenth anniversary of the arrival of the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter at the Red Planet. Over the ensuing decade, MRO has produced a seemingly endless array of high resolution images of the planet, in many cases changing the way we view what may be humanity’s next home and most importantly […]
From National Science Foundation Press Release: February 11, 2016 For the first time, scientists have observed ripples in the fabric of spacetime called gravitational waves, arriving at Earth from a cataclysmic event in the distant universe. This confirms a major prediction of Albert Einstein’s 1915 general theory of relativity and opens an unprecedented new window […]
On February 11, 2015, SpaceX conducted is first (and so far only) launch to deep space. The payload, officially designated as the Deep Space Climate Observatory, has a long and strange history dating back to the Clinton Administration and Vice President Al Gore’s proposal to launch a satellite which would show the entire Earth as […]
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